I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to managing financial services and, more particularly, to methods and systems for managing service accounts for users.
II. Description of the Related Art
Financial account management has become an increasingly important role for the average consumer. The increase in the popularity of financial services, such as credit cards, automatic debit payment processes, customized checking, savings and investment accounts, coupled with the onset of the Internet and electronic commerce, have forced the average consumer to become personal financial managers for a plurality of types of personal accounts. These services give consumers the versatility and financial freedom to control their assets and credit. However, along with this freedom, comes the disadvantage of managing a wide range of financial accounts in order to ensure payments are not late, balances are not exceeded and purchases/investments are legitimate.
In addition, consumers with a plurality of different accounts, such as a number of various credit cards, may have trouble keeping current with account balances, payments and other transactions. The consequences of mis-management may result in penalties assessed by the institutions providing the accounts. These penalties may be associated with payments that were not made on time or balance thresholds that are exceeded.
In order to help consumers manage different accounts, on-line account management services have been created. These services allow consumers to enroll with a financial service that collects account information for the consumer. Consumers enroll by giving the financial service secure account information associated with the accounts the consumers wish to have monitored. These services act as a trusted intermediary by accessing servers provided by the institutions governing the accounts associated with the consumers. The trusted intermediary collects account information from institution servers and combines the information into an aggregated document reflecting balance information associated with accounts the consumers selected to have monitored. The document is then sent to the consumers for display through, for example, a browser application running at a client site where the consumer is located.
Other conventional account management services enable consumers to be notified when transactions have taken place on their accounts. These services, which may be provided by a financial institution governing the consumer's accounts, send a message to the consumer after account activity has been detected. Thus, consumers are alerted whenever a transaction takes place with a given account, enabling them to authenticate and track the transactions.
Although conventional account management services allow consumers to obtain account balance and transaction information, they do not provide consumers with automatic protection from the penalties associated with mismanaged accounts. There is therefore a need for a system that provides consumers with automatic account monitoring services that perform customized management operations for consumer accounts to reduce, or eliminate, the incurrence of penalties from account institution providers.